Growing up a bit on the first day of school

The Friday before the first day of school plays out the same way every year in my neighborhood.

A steady stream of sun-dressed moms drag their sweaty herds of offspring to our school at 3:55 p.m. The mood around the class-posting zone is anxious, gnawing, clawing as 4 p.m. nears and The List is solemnly walked out by a brave team who seem to vanish the second their placements hit the board.

The moms can't wait for those neatly typed papers that signify it's real: the utter lawlessness of summer is over and they can reclaim their lives — their workouts, their kid-free erranding. And even more importantly, The List bears the name of the one other adult in the world who will split the burden of caring, sharing and staring down that mother's child for nine months as he grows up a bit in a little plastic chair, his secular womb.

For the kids, The List means even more. A merciful match can be the payoff for a summer spent finger-crossing for a teacher who gives out candy. Or it can seemingly signal the end of childhood when all your friends are placed in one class — the other class, not yours — with the teacher you wanted but didn't get.

And that's how things went down for my first-grader this year — my shyest, of course. We scanned sheets of teachers we knew and kids we recognized, to no avail. When we finally found Blake's name on the list of a teacher we didn't know too well, splattered in the middle of a long list of kids we didn't know at all, my heart sank.

"He doesn't know one other boy in his class!" I whisper-yelled into my cell, dragging my husband into the blacktop drama.

"How's he taking it?" Michael asked.

"He hasn't — he doesn't — he's on the jungle gym right now," I sputtered, watching my oblivious son's blond curls blow in the breeze, ushering in what would be the loneliest year ever.

"Then let it rest."

But the night before school started, I did anything but rest. Of all my kids, why this one? Why my anxious little guy who wouldn't go to a birthday party until he was 5, who didn't do play groups or play dates devoid of a sibling or cousin? This one still clung to my leg, held my hand and let me kiss him in public. He was a kindergartner, a preschooler, my baby only yesterday.

On the first day of school, I led him to his class's designated area on the black top. I watched his sullen face, his darting eyes, taking in the gravity of the line of unknown faces as we walked to the end. I silently pleaded for his happy dimple to emerge with a smile of recognition at a face he may have met on a playground or a soccer field, unbeknownst to me.

But no. He trudged to the end of the line and sat down, small, alone, quiet. I watched him, hovering. There were no quivers, no tears. The teacher came to claim her class. It was time for me to leave.

As I walked away from the campus that had felt like a warm second home to our family for seven years, I blinked back my own tears and silently cursed the callous coldness of this ambiguous List Maker. As I hit the parking lot, the mama bear in me wheeled around, ready to charge back into the principal's office to beg for a redo, but my husband pulled me back with a soft "Why tempt fate? It'll be good for him."

So I left my shy-but-brave little boy alone there in that great big unknown to fend for himself, to make it work. And as I went home to my workout and kid-free erranding, I prayed I might channel his strength to grow up this year. It'll be good for me.

Autumn McAlpin is a San Clemente resident and freelance writer and mother of four. Her column Cracking Up runs weekly in OC Moms, The Orange County Register's parenting section. She also is the author of the book "Real World 101: A Survival Guide to Life After High School."

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